


The Shadow of Sorrow

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Series: Within the Hollow Crown [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death rarely visited the Water Gardens, though all of Sunspear was hung with black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shadow of Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to an askbox meme on Tumblr. Many thanks to Gehayi for looking it over before I posted! Title adapted from Shakespeare's _Richard II_ , Act 4, Scene 1.
> 
> This fic is set approximately five years before the events of [The Assembly of Ladies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/853156).

Elia found her mother in the Water Gardens after the funeral. Princess Artemisia had had the guards bring her chair to one of the shadowed galleries and she watched in silence as the children--royal and otherwise--splashed and shrieked amidst the pools and fountains. Death rarely visited the Water Gardens, though all of Sunspear was hung with black.

 

"Do they know?" she asked. "The older ones, at least?"

 

The Princess of Dorne gave a barely perceptible shrug. "Children often see more than we think. There were many who loved your father and will miss him. The younger ones will forget."

 

"He wouldn't care about that." Elia's father had been content to leave the governance of Dorne in his wife's capable hands and spend most of his days in the Water Gardens, first with Doran and then with Elia and Oberyn. A skilled warrior in his youth, he had led the Dornish contingent against the armies of Maelys the Monstrous on the Stepstones when Elia was barely old enough to speak and her grandsire still ruled from Sunspear. Recalling herself, Elia settled in the smaller chair beside her mother's. "I had a letter from Oberyn."

 

"Where is he?"

 

"Volantis again. The Second Sons took a contract with the Triarch. He wants to come back in the spring."

 

"It's been long enough," said her mother after a moment. "I would have my children with me."

 

"And grandchildren," Elia added. "That was the other reason Oberyn went to Volantis. Her name is Nymeria and she was born this past winter."

 

"Her mother?"

 

"Married. To a fool, clearly, if she managed to have a child without his knowledge, but Oberyn intends to bring his daughter here as soon as his contract is finished."

 

The Princess shook her head, but Elia could see the beginnings of a smile on her face. "She belongs here. As would Larra Sand's child, had it survived." That had been the name of Lord Edgar Yronwood's mistress, dark-haired and hazel-eyed, who had caught Oberyn's eye at the banquet held to celebrate his knighthood two years before. He'd been drunk on triumph as well as wine and, as Elia had lectured him afterward, forgot the cardinal rule of discretion.

 

Lord Yronwood had insisted on a duel--he could hardly have done otherwise, finding his mistress coupling with Oberyn in Sandstone's bathhouse--but Elia's father had managed to calm him until he agreed to stop at first blood. Oberyn swore to all the gods he could think of that he hadn't poisoned his spear beforehand, but Lord Yronwood's wound festered all the same, and neither maester nor septon could save him in the end.

 

"You didn't tell him," said the Princess when Elia didn't speak.

 

"What good would it do, Mother? She wanted no more to do with him after Lord Yronwood died. If the babe had lived, perhaps..." She shrugged. "Why raise such a ghost for no reason?"

 

Princess Artemisia studied her for a moment before nodding. "And now he has another."

 

"That we know of," Elia reminded her.

 

"I told him to have a care for such things. He may listen; he may not. Thank all the gods he is my youngest."

 

"He thanks them too, Mother, believe me."

 

For some time, they watched the children in silence. Servants moved in and out like shadows and called the children away to supper in waves, but Elia and her mother stayed until the moon rose high over the now-empty pools.

 

"Mellario should go into her confinement soon," said Elia's mother. "She's asked for one of those bearded priests to bless the child. Don't look at me that way, Elia, of course I agreed. But Doran will rule when I am dead and if she's to stand beside him..."

 

"She'll learn in time." Of course, Elia's sister-by-marriage had shown little inclination to learn Dornish ways in the nearly three years she'd spent in Sunspear, but she tried for Doran's sake if not for Mellario's own. "And I'll be here in any case."

 

Princess Artemisia glanced toward her. "Will your husband have any say in that, I wonder."

 

"He might if I knew who he was. Or mayhaps I'll only consider men willing to stay in Sunspear." At that thought, Elia smiled. "You found one, after all." Her mother had been Elia's age when she married Trystane Qorgyle, younger son of the lord of Sandstone. _May he rest with the gods_.

 

"I did. The gods blessed us with thirty years and for that I will always be grateful." Though Elia hoped she might say more, her mother did not. Instead, she reached into the sleeve tied to one of the arms of her chair and withdrew a letter. "Speaking of prospective husbands, you might be interested to know that Cersei Lannister no longer has one."

 

"Oh?" Lord Tywin's daughter had spoken of her prospective engagement to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen as if it were already agreed, though she was scarcely nine years old and the prince a year younger than Elia. She read the short parchment missive her mother handed her, written in a script she did not recognise and signed _Dorna Lannister_. Lord Kevan Lannister's wife, she recalled after a moment, who had spent hours with her mother during those cold weeks at Casterly Rock reminiscing about Lady Joanna and the old days. "I would have thought King Aerys pleased to ally himself with Lord Tywin."

 

"Not anymore, it seems." The princess' expression in that moment looked startlingly like Oberyn's on the verge of mischief. "Just a thought. If you're willing to leave Sunspear, that is."

 

It had been nearly a century since the last marriage alliance between Dorne and the Iron Throne. Elia had only met Prince Rhaegar once, when the king and queen paid a state visit to Sunspear soon after her twelfth name day--a slender, pale-haired boy who barely spoke two words together and went nowhere without his harp and at least three books to hide behind in company. Oberyn had found him insufferably boring, while Elia spent most of the royal visit in bed with a broken arm and scarcely knew enough to form an opinion of him. But that hardly mattered--what mattered was that he was next in line for the Iron Throne.

 

"Mother," said Elia, narrowing her eyes, "do you mean to steal a royal marriage from Lord Tywin?"

 

"It was your father's idea, to give him proper credit, but he's never cared for Tywin. He'd never trust a man who couldn't laugh at himself. For my part, Tywin has changed since he lost Joanna, and not for the better." She took Elia's hand, her fingers cold and dry. "It will take months, perhaps years, so you'll have time to think."

 

"And it may not even happen, Mother. Surely the Targaryens will insist on a queen in perfect health." Her mother's physician had warned her at least once a year since her first flowering that any pregnancy would be a gamble. _And that is a queen's first duty_. If she could not fulfil that, what use would she be? "I may be many things, but--"

 

"Listen to me, Elia." The words dried up on her tongue and she met her mother's eyes. "I have ruled this land for fifteen years and I intend to rule it for fifteen more, gods willing. But to have a grandchild on the Iron Throne..." She smiled, and again Elia saw Oberyn in her face. "I'm not immune to ambition, daughter. In my own way, I'm as bad as Tywin."

 

Elia recalled Casterly Rock's dark corridors, its haunted, miserable silence, and shook her head. "Never that bad, Mother. Father wouldn't let you, and now Oberyn and I will make sure of it."

 

"And you'll think on what I said?"

 

Elia grinned. "Only a fool would throw away a crown unseen. Besides, I hear he's taken up jousting since I last saw him, or so Ashara hears from her brother."

 

"If you sound too much like Oberyn, I'll take back the offer," warned her mother, squeezing her hand. "Gods, he's like your father."

 

"I'll write to him again. Tell him to come home, be damned to the Second Sons."

 

Elia's mother smiled at her. "Yes, sweetling. Do that."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Shadow of Sorrow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023791) by [derivational (crookedspoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/derivational)




End file.
